Don't Cry Anymore
by Tender Falling Rain
Summary: A story about Ranma trying to comfort Akane when she's upset...


Ranma looked up at the clock for the hundredth time that night. "3:00, man! I have to get up early!" He rolled over onto his side trying to get comfortable and closed his eyes. He tried desperately to think of nothing, but instead found himself listening to the melodic patterns of the dripping facet downstairs, the ticking of the clock, the snoring of his father turned panda, the pattering of the rain on the roof, and the sound of his own breathing that had unconsciously fallen into synchronization with the background noise.

"Argh!" he growled throwing his pillow in the air and punching it several hundred times before it fell back in place. He found it astounding that any pillow could sustain such a beating and still remain lumpy. He angrily lay back down giving a final attempt at sleep.

"Kkkkkkaaaaaarrrrrggghhh..." pitter, patter

"Drip..." pitter, patter

"Tick..." pitter, patter

"Shhhuuuuu…" pitter, patter

"...Tock..." pitter, patter

"...Kkkkkkaaaaaarrrrrggghhh..." pitter, patter

"...Drop..." pitter, patter

"...Shhhuuuuu..." pitter, patter

"Ahhh! I can't take it anymore!" he shouted while throwing his pillow at the wall and kicking it as it fell towards the floor after it's impact while he rushed out the door.

Since the gift of sleep had been stolen from him by the god of sleep deprivation, Ranma headed downstairs so he could go practice in the dojo for a while. He would have gone up onto the roof if it hadn't been raining that night. Nerima really did have the strangest weather. It had been bright and shiny that morning. Deep down he had a feeling that Nerima probably had considerably less amounts of these strange weather spurts before his arrival. It was simply another humiliating part of the curse, and rain, along with all other forms of water, seemed to be attracted to him from all general directions. 

As he went around the corner into the dining room, he stopped. His eyes were not fully adjusted to the light, and so he could only barely make out the outline of a figure sitting at the table. He stood there for a moment until he began to make out the faint sound of the person's soft sobs.

"Akane?" he asked, somehow sensing it was her.

She spun around, quickly wiping the tears from underneath her eyes in an attempt to hide them. "Ranma? What are you doing up?"

He slowly walked over to the table and sat down next to her. "I couldn't sleep. What about you?" He looked down at the table to a large book that was opened. He could just vaguely make out the picture of a woman before Akane closed the book and lifted it up, clasping it to her chest.

"Same."

Ranma wasn't sure if her short answers were because she was mad at him or if it was because she was afraid her voice would betray the fact that she had been crying. "Are you okay, Akane?" Now that he thought about it, she hadn't been herself the previous day. She had been strangely reserved and quiet, and when Shampoo had glomped onto him in the morning on the way to school she hadn't even said anything. He should have known there was something wrong then.

"I'm fine."

Ranma began to feel a little hurt himself that she was trying so hard to hide whatever was wrong from him. As usual, his hurt turned to annoyance. "Sure, whatever you say. Look, if you don't want to talk to me, that's fine, but don't lie to me. I'm not stupid you know."

She didn't say anything but merely stared listlessly at the table, and her bangs fell over her eyes so that he couldn't see them. When she still refused to say anything, he gave up. "Shesh. Here I am worried about you and you can't even say anything. Fine then, sorry I even bothered."

He turned away from her and began to stand up but her hand suddenly clasped the back of her shirt and stopped him. Unsure of what to do, he merely remained still. Akane then pressed her forehead against his back. "I'm sorry," she sobbed into his shirt.

As he listened to her sobs he realized that he had no idea what to do, no way of knowing how to comfort her. Eventually he awkwardly turned around and let her press against his chest instead. He fumbled for a moment unsure of where to place his arms and eventually placed them lightly around her shoulders. "It's okay, Akane," he whispered softly over and over again until her soft crying began to fade. "Hey, what's wrong?" he finally asked her once she had finished.

She sniffled a few times and sat up straight. "I don't know," she said, feeling a little embarrassed. "It's kind of silly."

"No it's not. Come on, you can tell me about it."

She didn't say anything immediately as if she were carefully choosing her words before she said them. "Yesterday would have been my mother's birthday," she finally said. She looked at the book which he now saw was a photo album and began tracing the engraved words of "Memories" with her finger. "When I woke up in the morning, I didn't remember at first. But there was this feeling in the back of my head that I should be remembering something. No one else said anything, but they were all more quiet than usual. But at least they remembered. And then when Kasumi brought in breakfast I remembered. It was the same thing mother used to always make. I remembered how I used to watch her in the morning while she prepared breakfast, and the song she used to sing to herself. I even remembered how the food tasted. But I can't for the life of me remember anything that happened a few days before she died." She bit her lip as it quivered slightly. She opened the photo album and stared at the picture of a young woman who looked like a more mature, and maternal version of Akane. "Already I can barely recognize her face. What does that mean?" she asked, the shakiness of her sobs returning to her voice once again. "Am I going to forget her completely someday?"

"Of course not! You're never going to forget her completely. And it's not her final moments that matter. It's all those other things that you remember about her that's important."

"I don't know. I guess it's not so much that I can't remember her face, but what that means. When she died, I felt so alone. Like I had no one in the world. And now... I don't miss her as much as I used to. I began to realize that I still had my dad, and Nabiki. And then Kasumi's almost like a mother to me. And I have my friends. I'm not alone anymore. I guess I'm not as reliant upon her as I used to be. I'm starting to get over her death. And I'm feeling guilty because of that."

"Don't be stupid! Do you honestly think your mother wanted it to be like that? I mean sure, she wanted to be remembered, but not with sadness. She wanted you to remember the good times, just like you have. So what if you can't remember the sad things? What would be the point in that? I'm sure your mother was a cheerful, happy person, and I'm sure you were always happy when she was around. If all you remembered were those sad moments before she died, that would go against everything she really was. It would be like disrespecting her memory. She wouldn't expect you to mourn her for the rest of her life. She wants you to live your life. And I'm sure that somewhere she's watching you, and she smiles when you're happy, and when you're sad, so is she. So don't cry anymore, alright?" When he finished he noticed how she was staring at him in surprise, and almost a look of awe. "What?"

"Nothing. It's just that what you said is so beautiful. It's just not really like you."

"Well gee, thanks a lot. You know I can be nice once and a while. I'm not as bad as you always make me out to be."

"I know. I'm sorry. What I meant to say was thank you, Ranma. Strangely enough this is the first time I've really talked about it with anyone. And it kind of helps, you know? You really made me feel a lot better." She smiled at him one of her brilliant smiles and he felt his cheeks growing hot.

"Uh, yeah, sure," he muttered, blushing and staring out into the backyard.

They sat in silence, staring out into the night. "Hey, it looks like it stopped raining," Ranma said after a while.

Akane didn't respond, and instead softly rested her head on his shoulder. Ranma stiffened and glanced sideways at her face. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow. "Akane?"

She mumbled something unintelligible in her sleep and nestled her head to a more comfortable position on his shoulder. He smiled while looking at her face. "You're hopeless, you know that?" he said chuckling slightly.

Carefully, so as not to wake her, he shifted her body against his own and slowly lifted her in his arms, while standing up. "Come on, time to go to bed," he whispered as he carried her up the stairs to her room and then placed her gently in her bed. He tucked the covers around her and paused to wonder what it was that made him act in that way, and why he cared so much. "She is kind of cute when she's sleeping." 

He hesitated for a moment as he stared at her face and then leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "You're not alone anymore," he whispered. He turned and made his way back to his own room and laid down on his futon. He rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes, smiling ever so faintly. "And neither am I," he whispered before following asleep himself.


End file.
